Is Israel Its Own Worst Enemy?

Jerusalem is non-negotiable for the Israelis

Hey thats a pre-condition isn't it.
Why are you attacking Bibi like that?

The Palestinians never were unified

just like any other nation that came into being then

Maybe that is because there is no such thing like a homogenous Palestinian ethnicity.

So just the same as the British Germans French Irish Indians Americans Pakistanis Brazilians Chinese and errrrr....Israelis.

Also, you ignore that the cionflict in the region is not so much basing on the Palestinian-Israeli confrontation, but the Sunni-Shia confrontation, and the Saudi and Iranian interests for dominance.

The Iranian element is a later development added into an existing conflict so it is not what he conflict is basing on.

Muhammad suffered a great narcissistic offen ce from the Jews, and he took revenge by waging war and committing genocide. Since then, Jews are simply dirt, in Islam's eyes.

The self avowed "expert" is at it again must be that german translation he glances at once in a while when he wants to count the pages and look at the empty bits.
So which places throughout history took in these "people of the book" when the civilised west went on its frequent rampages against the Jews? Funny thing to do for people who are simply dirt.

And the "militants" you want to keep in check, they are part of the Lebanese government and have made a very very big footprint in that country now

Good point, an organisation that didn't exist until quite a while after the Israelis invaded in support of their rather "militant" Lebanese allies.
Damn, does that mean all sides are at fault and all sides are at it

@Penguin if someone was to write in favour of the chinese or soviets perhaps you would get a measure of the arguements against it

[soopaman2]

Easy solution, you all will be so proud. Maybe Obama will give me his Nobel peace prize he didn't earn.

Give the Palastinians stinger missles, and explain to them that they work better than rocks against tanks. Since Allah or Allen or whatever his name is tells them to still fight with rocks and swords. Even up the score.


Make them play king of the hill. Whoever holds Jerusalem until the other side stops coming wins...

Then we nuke the victory party and the city. No more old rocks to fight over! Now they are all gods chosen people and can be with him.



Gimme my nobel peace prize now.

[Gerald]

Palastinians has more than stinger missiles, if they now want to put it into a full-scale war, but there is no scenario,yet.

[MH]

UNRWA is an impediment to peaceBy DAVID BEDEIN
10/02/2011 22:55


UNRWA instills millions of Arab refugee descendants with false hope they'll be repatriated to 1948 villages.

Talkbacks ()
A Middle East peace process ensued 34 years ago, when Egyptian president Anwar Sadat made an unprecedented peace effort, when he proclaimed a new policy of peace and reconciliation with Israel. Sadat headed the largest nation of the League of Arab Nations, the very entity which declared a war of extermination against the nascent state of Israel in 1948. The very same League of Arab Nations spawned the PLO in 1964 for the very same purpose: to liquidate the Jewish state.

The 1979 Israel-Egypt peace treaty, and the subsequent 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty which emanated from the seminal Sadat initiative, ignited hopes that the Israeli-Arab war would finally come to an end, while outstanding issues of the 1948 war would finally be resolved.

Festering issues from 1948 still include the vast property claims of nearly one million Jews from Arab countries who left almost all possessions behind, along with the claims of the descendants of half a million Arab refugees from 1948 war who left behind hundreds of Arab villages.

While Jewish refugees from Arab countries were absorbed into Israel, nearly five million descendants of Arab refugees from the 1948 war continue to languish in 59 United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) “temporary” refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem and Gaza, now funded to the tune of 1.2 billion dollars per annum by 38 western democracies, with the US government donating 25 percent of the annual UNRWA budget.

An official UNRWA report, published in June 2011, describes the destitute situation in the UNRWA facilities,which UNRWA officials contrasted with the tremendous economic growth of neighboring Arab cities of Ramallah, Jenin, Bethlehem, Hebron and more.

YET DESPITE its plague of poverty, UNRWA makes no effort to seek any long term solutions for descendants of Arab refugees who have wallowed in the indignity of refugee life for more than 60 years. UNRWA could adapt the principles of UNHCR, the United Nations High Commission For Refugees, to rehabilitate thousands of its clients. After all, UNHCR has recently gained experience in its efforts to relocate thousands of Arab refugees whom it had rescued in Iraq, placing them in eleven nations around the world beginning with Chile.

In contrast, UNRWA instills millions of Arab refugee descendants with the false hope that they will be repatriated to their 1948 villages, even though these villages no longer exist. Meanwhile, UNRWA makes no effort to even encourage Arab refugee descendants to plan for a future Palestinian Arab entity that may soon be established in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

Instead, UNRWA embraces the “right of return” curricula of the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, and UNRWA facilities boast maps of Palestine which replace Israel, where all Israeli cities are described as Arab cities. This past summer, our agency filmed UNRWA sports camps for children where the dominant theme was the “right of return” to the villages of their greatgrandparents.

The UNRWA school system’s call to join the armed struggle to realize the “right of return” has transformed UNRWA camps into a breeding ground for terrorists.

It was therefore no coincidence that, in March 2009, Hamas terror groups won their fourth consecutive election to take charge of the UNRWA trade union and the UNRWA teachers’ union in Gaza.

Appearing before the National Press Club in Washington on September 19, 2011, Dr. Mordechai Kedar, senior research associate at the Begin Sadat Center (BESA) for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University, described UNRWA as “an anachronistic institution born 60 years [ago] and [which] should have died a natural death many decades ago, like in all parts of the world after the tumult of the Second World War.” Moreover, said Kedar, “what UNRWA does is to perpetuate the wars of the 1940s as it resuscitates refugee problems that died in all other parts of the world, more than fifty years ago.”



In conclusion, Kedar addressed the contrast between UNRWA’s motto, which is “peace begins here” and UNRWA’s policies, which he said work against the cause of peace between Israel and its neighbors.

In short, noted Kedar, “UNRWA raises Arab expectations to radically change Israeli demography – expectations that will never be fulfilled. UNRWA wastes funds that could be used much [more] productively, funds which the world – especially the American taxpayer – could have used in a more productive way.”

The writer is the author of Where Has All the Flour Gone: Whims and Waste of UN Palestinian Arab Refugee Policy and the director of The Center for Near East Policy Research

.............

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Vendor

Palastinians has more than stinger missiles...

That's for sure:

Thanks Iran!

Thanks Syria!

Thanks Libya!

[Sammi79]

@Sky.

The Israelis have no homogenous Israeli ethnicity either, most are or are descendents of American immigrants, with a small portion being displaced Jews from Europe, and an even smaller portion of Jewish formerly Palestinians who are the only ones who could possibly have any connection to the ancient Hebrews and over that length of time this is questionable at best. Oh and of course the Arab Israelis at about 1/5 of the total - ethnically speaking the Palestinians have as much right to be a 'Nation' as the Israelis. Which you argue reasonably is miniscule, but the Israelis got theirs didn't they?

I would like to refrain from arguing about religion, unfortunately as this seems to be the worst case of religious hi-jacking from all sides it is still a fundamental part of the problem. Did you watch that doc I linked? The young fellow Louis talks to living in a tent on the hills, I liked him for his youth and vigor, but it was very sad to note the extreme belief drilled in to such an extent. The lad only had posters of Rabbis poor chap. He openly admitted to feeling that Palestinans are beneath Jewish Israelis, not only that, but that the Jews are above all peoples as they were chosen by god. Exactly the same subhumanising drivel the nazis inflicted upon their own. You are right obviously, to say that the Islamic nutjobs are behaving in a similar (perhaps even worse) way but like I said, These people should not be taken as representative of the larger population. They are the worst examples. Am I be wrong in thinking that the majority of folks on all sides truly wish for a peaceful life, in fact, want the same things as every other thinking ape on the planet? Of course there will always be some apes who can't/won't think. Religion absolutely guarantees it, but it would still happen. All I can add to that is it makes me just as sad to see a bunch of Jews bobbing their heads in prayer and stuffing paper into some antiquated wall as it does to see the Muslims wrapping up their women and prostrating themselves 5 times a day. It is all brainwashing. There has never been clearer examples of the damage that religion can do to an individual. That being said, Religion itself is not the cause, rather it is a tool used by the leaders of all sides for their own ends, to great effect. It is the ape behind the wheel steering the ship we ought to beware of. Like i said, as a priority, extreme or politically active religious groups should be silenced.

You are right in saying that Iranian/Saudi interests are heavily at stake here, and I wholeheartedly support humanitarian efforts in these places, where there are undoubtedly very many human rights abuses. Unfortunately our western governments are all doing their utmost to ignore this, as I assume simplistically, they own a lot of oil which we all desperately need and/or may have nuclear weapons both of which really escalate the risks involved with interference. It may not be right or just, but it is a great deterrent. When I talked about suppressing militants, I apply that equally, to Hamas, Fatah and the IDF which wouldn't need looking at if it just lived down to its title. They certainly do a good job of defending Israel, no question, only they go a bit above and beyond that, don't they? I cannot agree with your argument about hatred through the centuries, that is simply an excuse. Hatred is taught, by violence and oppression, for every generation. Every violent act increments hatred for the attacker in the victim. Acts of courtesy, respect and kindness similarly work in the other direction. Oppression through military occupation and subhuman treatment are essentially violence in slightly different forms. I don't hate the Germans, or the French, or the Romans or Scandinavians for that matter Sky. Where did my hereditary hatred go? As you correctly point out, the hi-jacked religions teach hatred in an academic form, to those too young to have built any intellectual defense against it. I guess it could be considered mental violence, inflicted upon children, with the added benefit being the attacker choosing the object of the victims hatred. But all religions end up this way don't they, and there is certainly religion on both sides of this problem.

You can call me naive, and you may well be right. At least I made some suggestions that might help the plight of the ordinary well meaning people on the ground. What do you propose should be done, in your wisdom?

You also assume that my suggestions are well meant. I guess so up to a point. But then, I refrained from adding to my last post, with some difficulty, that if peace isn't the real goal, why not go at it? Blow the crap out of each other til the river Jordan runs with Palestinian blood. Israel can have all of the land of Palestine for its own, and spend eternity defending it from all the Arabic nations. With US support in the form of weapons and manpower, that could go on for decades. I won't lose any sleep mind. Oh but don't bother filming it this time I think I've seen enough.

Originally Posted by soopaman2

Easy solution, you all will be so proud. Maybe Obama will give me his Nobel peace prize he didn't earn.

Give the Palastinians stinger missles, and explain to them that they work better than rocks against tanks. Since Allah or Allen or whatever his name is tells them to still fight with rocks and swords. Even up the score.


Make them play king of the hill. Whoever holds Jerusalem until the other side stops coming wins...

Then we nuke the victory party and the city. No more old rocks to fight over! Now they are all gods chosen people and can be with him.



Gimme my nobel peace prize now.

Exactly. I got to hand it to you, the end part is the cream on that cake.

[MH]

Originally Posted by Sammi79

You also assume that my suggestions are well meant. I guess so up to a point. But then, I refrained from adding to my last post, with some difficulty, that if peace isn't the real goal, why not go at it? Blow the crap out of each other til the river Jordan runs with Palestinian blood. Israel can have all of the land of Palestine for its own, and spend eternity defending it from all the Arabic nations. With US support in the form of weapons and manpower, that could go on for decades. I won't lose any sleep mind. Oh but don't bother filming it this time I think I've seen enough.
.

Sure... the issue is all about stealing land fro Palestinians and Arabs trying to prevent that..hence the three major wars.
Because Arab nations and Turkey or Iran care so much lol.
Its certainly gives them good political weapon though-just look at your own post you write like a victim of Al-Jazeera.
Never mind that Palestinians here including those in Gaza enjoy better economical and humanitarian situation that most Arabs in ME.

You are misled so much i don't even know when to start to correct you.
I think that if Palestinian red your post he would laugh his head off.

[Sammi79]

Originally Posted by MH

Sure... the issue is all about stealing land fro Palestinians and Arabs trying to prevent that..hence the three major wars.
Because Arab nations and Turkey or Iran care so much lol.
Its certainly gives them good political weapon though-just look at your own post you write like a victim of Al-Jazeera.
Never mind that Palestinians here including those in Gaza enjoy better economical and humanitarian situation that most Arabs in ME.

You are misled so much i don't even know when to start to correct you.
I think that if Palestinian red your post he would laugh his head off.

In the case of Israel yes it is certainly about stolen land. I should really edit my posts to change 'contested areas' to 'illegally occupied areas' in the interest of being sensitive to an Israeli viewpoint I didn't. That was obviously a mistake, I fell into the trap of conceding that the areas be contested. By rights, Israel should immediately and completely withdraw from these places, and submit its criminal leaders to fair trial at the UN. The IDF should not be occupying land that does not belong to them. How hard is that to understand? Every other nation on the planet is in agreement on this, and we are all wrong? why are we wrong? because god says so? Just because Palestinians have no nation does not mean that stealing their land is justifiable! One reason the US keeps hamstringing the UN is that they are (quite rightly) scared of what you and your own particular brand of fruitloops might decide to do with their nukes. Most Arabs in the ME are not subject to an illegal occupation. I might be misled, certainly. I can only comment on what i see, and I think that you are equally misled by your own government. It was Sky who brought up Turkey etc... you can argue with him about that if it pleases you.

I welcome the debate but your refusal to 'correct me' as you put it leads me to believe that perhaps you have nothing to say, not that holds any water anyway. Are you a believer yourself?

Look, discussion is good and healthy, and I want to assure you I have nothing personal against you. Lets talk. Show me my delusions for what they are in your eyes, help me to understand. I am open minded sir, and my mind is able to change. What have I got so hideously wrong?

You are misled so much i don't even know when to start to correct you.

That appears true, yet since you are so far in denial perhaps you shouldn't start.

In the case of Israel..... own government

Wow, thats a no , no, no, definately no, no not quite , yes but it doesn't mean that, wow thats just crazy, no but contentious, no, irrelevant, true , easily fixed, yes and no.
See its easy

[Jimbuna]

A lively debate ensued

[MH]

Arabs rewriting history



Op-ed: Arab reaction from 1949 shows Israel isn’t exclusively responsible for refugee problem Alexander Joffe, Asaf Romirowsky

The late Palestinian intellectual Edward Said called Palestinians “the victims of the victims.” As the September deadline for the Palestinian “Unilateral Declaration of Independence” approaches, and the certain endorsement by the United Nations General Assembly, it is worth asking again who originally victimized the Palestinians. Today, of course, the unanimous consensus among Palestinians, and the Arab and Muslim worlds, is that it was Israel that, in 1948, attacked and expelled Palestinians. But who did Palestinians blame for their fate in 1949?

The two largest Palestinian communities in the US are located in Dearborn Michigan and Jacksonville Florida. On December 15th, 1949 the Michigan Arab newspaper As Sabah (literally the Morning Tribune) published an editorial on the question of the Palestine Arab refugees:

“What is the crime of the refugees in the eyes of the lords of Arabia who stand by and watch the misery of the refugees, and who suck the blood of the poor and needy-without shame before God and the world? Yes the poor refugees committed the crime of listening to those deceivers, they believed the liars, and went to the extreme foolishness of leaving their homes, counting on their deceitful leaders to bring them back! And because of what is happening to the Palestine refugees, Arab public opinion is changing little by little to support the Jews in Israel where not a single Arab dies from starvation and cold! And if there should be another war, it should be against the Arab leaders, the princes and kings who brought this catastrophe upon the poor people of Palestine.”

The editorial’s analysis regarding Arab public opinion favoring Israel was incorrect, to say the least. But the claim that Palestinians fled their homes in response to Arab leaders has been controversial since the events occurred. The Palestinians of Michigan in 1949 thought this was the case.

In October 1949, Palestinian intellectual Musa Alami wrote: “What concerned (the Arab states) most and guided their policy was not to win the war and save Palestine from the enemy, but what would happen after the struggle, who would be predominant in Palestine, or annex it themselves.”

British testimonials

But in addition to the usurpation of the Palestinian cause, which upset As Sabah’s editorialists, there was another dimension. British officials on the scene at the time, hardly pro-Zionist, were convinced that Palestinian leaders were steadily abandoning their people. In December 1947 the High Commissioner, General Sir Alan Cunningham reported that “panic of (the) middle class persists and there is a steady exodus of those who can afford to leave the country." He added later in April 1948, “In all parts of the country the effendi class has been evacuating in large numbers over a considerable period and the tempo is increasing.”


In June 1949 Sir John Troutbeck, head of the British Middle East office in Cairo reported that the refugees “express no bitterness against the Jews (or for that matter against the Americans or ourselves) they speak with the utmost bitterness of the Egyptians and other Arab states. “We know who our enemies are,” they will say, and they are referring to their Arab brothers who, they declare, persuaded them unnecessarily to leave their homes…I even heard it said that many of the refugees would give a welcome to the Israelis if they were to come in and take the district over.”


Israeli officials maintained from the beginning that a majority of the Palestinians were encouraged to flee by their own leaders and those of Arab states, who then abandoned them before or in the midst of battle. This has long been dismissed by Palestinians and their supporters as Zionist propaganda. But British officials on the scene and opposed to Israel, and Palestinians in America, would not have simply parroted their enemy’s assessment.


The implications of this long-forgotten editorial, and all the other statements, are in the first instance that Israel does not bear full and exclusive responsibility for the Palestinian refugee situation – the Arab states and the Palestinians themselves do too. This also puts their upcoming “Unilateral Declaration of Independence” into a wholly different light.


In effect, Palestinian leaders have asked the United Nations for yet another opportunity to turn the clock back to give them another chance at achieving statehood that could have been theirs in 1948 or even in 1938. Meanwhile, some Palestinian officials have begun floating the idea of returning to the 1947 partition plan, the same plan that their predecessors rejected summarily in 1947. When do these chances run out? In the process, as their predecessors did in 1949, they blame everyone but themselves for not having achieved their goals to date.

A culture without a sense of responsibility for its own decisions, that blames others for its own decisions and at the same time perpetually demands that its maintenance is someone else’s responsibility, is not likely to create a stable, functioning nation-state. Any new Palestinian state would be an instant pauper, utterly dependent on aid, primarily from the American taxpayer.

Little wonder then that at least some Palestinian leaders are trying to back off from the Unilateral Declaration of Independence. The “deceivers” that Palestinian Americans of 1949 railed against are ultimately their own leaders and other Arab states. Until new leaders can be found for both, and a new culture of responsibility and self-reliance installed, little progress will be made.


Alexander H. Joffe and Asaf Romirowsky are the authors of "A Tale of Two Galloways: Notes on the Early History of UNRWA and Zionist Historiography,” published in the journal Middle Eastern Studies

*****

[JU_88]

I was right
Ahh smug mode.

[Gerald]

Is not it true that you always have the right,

[MH]

The Palestinian wonderland



Op-ed: Palestinian statehood bid based on irrational worldview, flawed interpretation of history Asaf Romirowsky

Lewis Carroll***8217;s Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found are a great way to understand the Palestinian narrative. Specifically, Carroll uses time and space as the plot device while drawing on chess imagery, mirror themes, opposites and time running backwards. As such, it provides the perfect ***8220;logic***8221; to the irrational Palestinian worldview and interpretation of history as they attempt to achieve statehood through unilateral declaration of independence at the United Nations this month.

This is the same historical read that has convinced Palestinians that it is Israel and the West that created the Arab-Palestinian refugees, rather their own Arab leaders who did indeed put them in this state intentionally. Today, the perfidy of Palestinian society lies in its division, dysfunctionality, and complete denial of the reality it lives in.

The historical truth is that the notion of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state existing alongside Israel has never been part of the Palestinian worldview. The Palestinians have also always rejected the notion of a single bi-national state.

Palestinian society has never seen Jewish sovereignty or Israel's existence as a ***8220;right.***8221; The only right in the Palestinians***8217; narrative of the conflict is their own connection to the land. They do, however, see Israel as a temporary military fact. But believe there will come a day, the narrative goes, when they will be able to defeat the Israelis. Their recent appeal to the UN is a new and cynical turn that should not mask the history of rejectionism.

In November 1947, United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 recommended the creation of separate Jewish and Arab states. Palestinian representatives and Arab states rejected this recommendation and consequently launched a war against the Jewish community. A close look at the General Assembly***8217;s final tally in 1947 highlights this rejectionism when 33 countries voted for partition, 13 against and 10 abstained. The countries that rejected co-existence with the Jews and blocked Arab-Palestinian statehood overwhelmingly came from the Arab/Muslim world: Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey and Yemen.

Talk is cheap
The reality is that a unilateral statehood bid is yet another Palestinian halo of ***8220;normalcy***8221; that undermines every accepted model for peace even according to UN standards. Unilateralism was never accepted as the modus operandi, but rather, mutually agreed upon concessions by the parties as illustrated by UN Security Council resolutions 242, 338, the Oslo Accords and the Roadmap for Peace.
Talk is cheap. Land and lives are precious. If the Palestinians genuinely want to talk about statehood they need to come to terms with accepting and recognizing Israel and first get their own territories under control, stop firing rockets at Israeli towns, and start creating a decent civil society.

Pragmatically, the larger issue of Palestinian statehood raises a basic question - do Palestinians really want a state and are they prepared to take responsibility for their own people under such a rubric? In accordance with reality of Through the Looking-Glass, where time and space can be turned around, the answer would be yes, but at the expense of Israel***8217;s creation to begin with

************

@Sammi
as a matter of fact most of Israeli are NOT against Palestinian state in principle.
The issue is more of security and land surrounding Jerusalem and not the west bank in itself.

[Gerald]

And the text has come from?